Elon Musk made personal, repeated attempts to try to get Donald Trump to back off from the wave of global tariffs that have created turmoil in international markets, it was reported on Tuesday.

Musk’s failure to get Trump to listen, however, is evidence to some observers of a growing rift between the US president and the world’s richest person, who has been leading the White House’s efforts to curb federal spending as head of the unofficial department of government efficiency (Doge).

Two sources confirmed to the Washington Post that Musk had made a number of personal approaches to Trump over the weekend to try to persuade him to reverse the slate of trade tariffs he announced last Thursday on a vast number of countries, many of them longstanding US allies.

Their imposition tanked stock markets worldwide on Monday, wiped trillions of dollars from the values of numerous companies, and dinged the wealth of several billionaire friends of Trump, including Musk, a founder of Tesla and SpaceX, and owner of X – whose personal fortune fell below $300bn for the first time since last year, according to reports.

Trump’s strategy has also drawn widespread criticism from economists, political opponents and even some members of his Republican party, with a rightwing libertarian group that has been funded by the conservative businessmen Leonard Leo and Charles Koch filing a lawsuit against the “illegal” tariffs.

The Post did not publish details of the conversations between Musk and Trump. But the president ultimately disregarded the representations and doubled down on his policy on Monday by threatening to impose an additional 50% tariff on China after it responded to the original trade levy by announcing a 34% tariff on US imports.

At the same time as Musk was pleading with Trump, he was appearing online at a rightwing conference in Italy calling for zero tariffs between the US and the European Union. “That has certainly been my advice to the president,” he told attenders of the far-right League party conference in Florence.

On Monday, Musk escalated an insult-heavy social media feud with Peter Navarro, a key Trump ally and White House trade adviser said to be a guiding force behind the tariffs strategy.

Over the weekend, in response to a video Navarro posted about the administration’s rationale for the tariff strategy, Musk attacked Navarro’s master’s degree in economics from Harvard University. Musk did the same in a reply to a commentator who praised the Navarro video, writing: “He ain’t built shit.”

More name-calling followed on Monday, after Navarro called Musk a “car assembler” rather than a manufacturer because many Tesla electric vehicle (EV) parts come from overseas.

“Navarro truly is a moron. What he says here is demonstrably false,” Musk said in one post. In another, he wrote a derogatory term for somebody with a learning disability and added: “Tesla has the most American-made cars. Navarro is dumber than a sack of bricks.”

Neither the Trump administration nor Musk responded to requests for comment.

The Post said Musk’s opposition to what has become Trump’s signature economic policy “marks the highest-profile disagreement between the president and one of his key advisers”. It follows reports that the billionaire will soon be leaving government to return to running his businesses.

Experts, however, expect the split to be amicable, with Musk set to retain close ties and influence with the president as well as on US politics generally.

“Elon is fantastic,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on his way to Florida on Thursday, saying he wished Musk could stay in government but wanted to return to his various companies.

Tesla, in particular, has seen a sharp drop in sales of EVs in the US and Europe since Musk began his work for Doge. A backlash to Musk’s politics materialized in the form of protests and vandalism at his vehicle dealerships.

The FBI announced in March that it was forming a taskforce to target violence at Tesla sales points and charging stations, which included the discovery of incendiary devices at a dealership in Austin, Texas, and the arrest of a man in West Palm Beach, Florida, who allegedly tried to use an SUV to strike a group of protesters.

Shares in Tesla were trading at $233.29 at market close on Monday, Reuters reported, down more than 42% since the beginning of the year.

More trouble for Musk could be looming in Washington DC over potential conflicts of interest involving SpaceX, a key Nasa contractor.

The Democratic congressmen Gerald Connolly and Maxwell Frost have written to Nasa’s chief legal officer seeking information about $38bn in government contracts awarded to SpaceX at a time when Musk’s Doge is gutting federal spending and slashing jobs at numerous federal institutions, including the US government’s space agency.

“At Nasa, where Mr Musk has both benefited from significant contracts and has the potential to receive vast amounts of new business, his defiance of recusal laws and control of operations directly benefit his businesses,” the Democrats wrote.

“The known conflicts of interest presented by this arrangement are illegal and must be addressed immediately.”

Beijing has hit back after the US vice-president, JD Vance, referred to “Chinese peasants” in an interview defending Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Speaking to Fox News last week, Vance asked: “What has the globalist economy gotten the United States of America? And the answer is, fundamentally, it’s based on two principles – incurring a huge amount of debt to buy things that other countries make for us.

“To make it a little more crystal clear, we borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture.”

He added: “That is not a recipe for economic prosperity, it is not a recipe for low prices, and it’s not a recipe for good jobs in the United States of America.”

Lin Jian, the spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, was asked about the comments on Tuesday and said: “It’s both astonishing and lamentable to hear this vice-president make such ignorant and disrespectful remarks.”

The foreign ministry said: “Pressure, threats and blackmail are not the right way to deal with China.”

Vance’s comments led to a backlash among Chinese internet users.

“We may be peasants, but we have the world’s best high-speed rail system, the most powerful logistics capabilities, and leading AI, autonomous driving, and drone technologies. Aren’t such peasants quite impressive?” a Weibo user posted, according to CNN.

China has said it will “fight to the end” if the US continues to escalate its trade war, after Trump threatened to add additional 50% tariffs on Chinese imports if Beijing did not reverse its 34% reciprocal tariff on US goods.

The exchange came after Trump’s announcement last week of a 34% tariff on imports from China – in addition to a previous 20% levy.

“If China does not withdraw its 34% increase above their already long term trading abuses by tomorrow, April 8th, 2025, the United States will impose additional tariffs on China of 50%, effective April 9th,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump’s tariffs on China are the latest among a multitude of tariffs aimed at US trading partners across the globe. The tariffs have caused serious losses on stock markets around the world.

Autopsies conducted on 15 Palestinian paramedics and civil emergency responders who were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza show they were shot in the upper body with “intent to kill”, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, which is demanding an international investigation into the attack.

The killings took place in the southern Gaza Strip on 23 March, days into a renewed Israeli offensive in the Hamas-ruled territory, and sparked international condemnation.

The results of the postmortems join a growing body of evidence that sharply contradicts Israel’s account of the incident, including video footage that shows the vehicles were travelling with headlights and flashing red lights that identified them, with personnel wearing hi-vis vests, at the time they were fired on.

Germany, one of Israel’s closest backers in the EU, called for an urgent investigation into the incident on Monday. “There are very significant questions about the actions of the Israeli army now,” the foreign ministry spokesperson Christian Wagner said after the video footage emerged.

“An investigation and accountability of the perpetrators are urgently needed,” he said, adding that a full investigation of the incident would be “a question that ultimately affects the credibility of the Israeli constitutional state”.

Those killed included eight Red Crescent staff, six members of the Gaza civil defence agency and one employee of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

The bodies were later found buried near the site of the shooting in the Tal al-Sultan area of Rafah city, in what the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs described as a mass grave.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initially said its soldiers “did not randomly attack” any ambulances, insisting they fired on “terrorists” that were approaching in “suspicious vehicles”.

Lt Col Nadav Shoshani said troops had opened fire on vehicles that had no prior clearance from Israeli authorities and had their lights off, a statement contradicted by video recovered from the mobile phone of one of those killed.

The IDF later changed its story and conceded its earlier account had been “mistaken”. It claimed on Sunday that at least six of the medics were linked to Hamas, but has provided no evidence. None of those killed were armed.

It said on Monday that its initial investigation into the killings had shown that the incident occurred “due to a sense of threat”, and claimed six Hamas militants had been in the vicinity.

The Israeli army chief, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir ordered a more in-depth investigation into the attack after completion of the initial one.

The president of the Red Crescent in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Younis al-Khatib, told journalists in Ramallah: “There has been an autopsy of the martyrs from the Red Crescent and civil defence teams. We cannot disclose everything we know, but I will say that all the martyrs were shot in the upper part of their bodies, with the intent to kill.”

He called for an international investigation into the killings, which the IDF has separately announced it was looking into.

“Why did you hide the bodies?” Khatib asked of the Israeli forces involved in the attack. “We call on the world to form an independent and impartial international commission of inquiry into the circumstances of the deliberate killing of the ambulance crews in the Gaza Strip.

“It is no longer sufficient to speak of respecting the international law and Geneva convention. It is now required from the international community and the UN security council to implement the necessary punishment against all who are responsible.”

In the past 18 months of war Israeli forces have conducted attacks that have killed hundreds of medical workers and the staff of NGOs and UN organisations, including foreign nationals working in Gaza. Six members of World Central Kitchen, including the Briton James Kirby, died in a sustained Israeli attack on their clearly marked vehicles.

Human rights organisations have long accused Israel of a culture of impunity with few soldiers ever facing justice.

A Palestinian journalist was killed and several others wounded on Monday, when Israel struck a media tent near Nasser hospital in Khan Younis.

According to the Palestinian Civil Defence, an organisation affiliated with Hamas’s interior ministry, two people – Helmi al-Faqawi and a civilian, Yousef al-Khazandar – were killed when the Palestine Today agency’s tent was struck.

An Israeli airstrike on a tent camp within a hospital complex in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis has killed 10 people, including a journalist, while seriously injuring dozens more after their encampment caught fire.

Images and video from the courtyard of Nasser hospital in Khan Younis showed people desperately attempting to extinguish the fires as it burned through a row of tents. One video showed people screaming as a bystander attempted to move a burning piece of furniture, while a journalist, later identified as Ahmed Mansour of the news outlet Palestine Today, sat upright engulfed by the blaze.

His colleague Helmi al-Faqawi was killed in the strike, while at least nine other journalists were among the wounded. Mansour received treatment for severe burns while the photographer Hassan Aslih was reportedly in a stable condition after suffering a head injury and cuts to his right hand.

The Palestinian foreign ministry in Ramallah said 10 people had been killed in the airstrike, with many more wounded. The ministry called al-Faqawi’s death an act of “extrajudicial killing,” labelling it part of growing crimes against journalists and an attempt to prevent the media from covering events on the ground.

Dozens of journalists in Gaza joined al-Faqawi’s relatives to bury the slain reporter in the hours after the attack, placing a blue flak jacket on top of the white shroud covering his body on a stretcher. His killing has brought the number of Palestinian journalists killed since October 2023 to 207, according to the Palestinian foreign ministry in the occupied West Bank.

“We will continue to deliver the message and convey the truth to the whole world. This is our humanitarian duty,” the journalist Abd Shaat told Reuters. He said that the noise of the airstrike had woken them, only for them to see that a nearby tent sheltering their colleagues was on fire.

Since the beginning of Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip hundreds of people have sought shelter in encampments in hospital grounds across the besieged territory, hoping that proximity will provide a measure of safety.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and the Shin Bet security agency said the airstrike on the hospital grounds was targeting Aslih, whom they accused of being a member of Hamas. In a statement, the IDF accused Aslih of taking part in Hamas’s attack on a string of Israeli towns and kibbutzim on 7 October 2023, when 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage.

He took part in the attack by uploading “footage of looting, arson and murder to social media”, the IDF said. Aslih has documented the impact of Israeli attacks on Gaza by uploading photos and video to his Instagram page, followed by 571,000 people.

His most recent post showed the funeral of the journalist Islam Miqdad, her blue flak jacket also draped across the white shroud over her body, in a burial ritual for journalists. Miqdad was killed in an attack on the building where she was sheltering with her young son in western Khan Younis.

“My daughter is innocent. She had no involvement, she loved journalism and adored it,” Miqdad’s mother Amal Kaskeen told the Associated Press.

Last year was the deadliest on record for journalists, with Israel responsible for 70% of the total deaths of media workers, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Israel’s assault on Gaza claimed the lives of 82 Palestinian journalists in 2024, according to CPJ.

Israel resumed airstrikes on Gaza after a fragile ceasefire collapsed last month. The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees said another 142,000 people were displaced in just six days in March after the resumption of fighting.

Fifty-nine hostages, including 24 understood to be alive, are still held by militants in Gaza. Israel’s assault on the territory has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians in 18 months of war, a third of them children, according to the health ministry in Ramallah.

Ukrainian forces have captured two Chinese nationals fighting with the Russian army in the eastern Donetsk region, according to Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The Ukrainian president said they were two of many more Chinese members of the Russian armed forces, and he accused the Kremlin of trying to involve Beijing in the conflict “directly or indirectly”.

Zelenskyy said he would ask his foreign minister “to immediately contact Beijing and clarify how China intends to respond to this”, though it was not clear if the captured soldiers had been sent at the behest of their government or were individuals who had chosen for themselves to sign up.

A few hundred Chinese nationals are thought to have travelled to fight as mercenaries with the Russian army alongside others from Nepal and central Asian countries. Their status appears to be different to that of the 11,000 soldiers from North Korea who were deployed on the frontline after a political agreement between Pyongyang and Moscow.

Zelenskyy said identity documents, bank cards and personal data were found in the possession of the two men captured, and that his country’s domestic security agency, the SBU, was “verifying all the facts”.

He argued that the capture of the two men indicated that Russia had no interest in agreeing to a ceasefire in US-brokered peace negotiations, which have made only limited progress over the past two months.

“Russia’s involvement of China, along with other countries, whether directly or indirectly, in this war in Europe is a clear signal that Putin intends to do anything but end the war. He is looking for ways to continue fighting,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media.

He said the development “definitely requires a response” from the US, Europe and “all those around the world who want peace”. There was no immediate reaction from Moscow or Beijing.

Below his post on X, Zelenskyy released a short video apparently showing a captured soldier, his hands tied, speaking in Mandarin. Prisoners of war are protected from public curiosity according to the Geneva conventions and should not have their images published online.

China says it is a neutral party in the conflict. Russia makes heavy use of Chinese-made components in its arms industry, and Ukraine does so to some extent. Both sides make significant use of Mavic drones from the Chinese manufacturer DJI, though Kyiv is trying to reduce its dependence on products from Beijing.

Western sources said it was early to reach definitive conclusions about the captured individuals. But one official said that so far “we’re not seeing evidence of state sponsorship here”, indicating an initial belief that the captured soldiers had acted on their own initiative.

Individuals from about 70 countries, including the US, UK and other European countries, have fought with Ukraine’s military. Some units, such as the Azov brigade, have actively sought to recruit foreigners to bolster forces depleted after more than three years of war.

A Danish chef couple who attracted international acclaim with a “forest resort” in Sweden have been tracked down to Guatemala after apparently going on the run from tax authorities, leaving behind 158 barrels of human waste.

Flemming Hansen and Mette Helbæk founded their purportedly eco-friendly retreat, Stedsans, in Halland, southern Sweden, after claiming to have “felt the call of the wild” in Copenhagen, where they ran a popular rooftop restaurant.

Stedsans, formed of 16 wooden cottages looking out on to nature, attracted praise from influencers and reviewers, who described it as “magical” and “enchanting luxury”.

But a few months ago it was discovered that the couple had vanished, leaving multiple animals behind and 158 barrels of human waste, an investigation by newspapers Dagens Nyheter and Politiken has found. It also found that wastewater was left to run into the forest.

Staff said multiple animals – including ducks – had died as a result of being left outside through the night by the couple, and others were left abandoned after the owners vanished.

Stedsans was declared bankrupt in March and the couple reportedly registered themselves as living abroad before Christmas.

According to the investigation, they left the Danish capital, where they owed millions of kroner in debt to Danish tax authorities, in 2016 to move to Sweden. There they set up Stedsans, but started accumulating debt to Swedish tax authorities, which reportedly amounted to 6m SEK (£470,000). They have since started a new hotel business in Guatemala.

In a message posted on their website, they said: “We came very far with Stedsans, but we also had to realise on the way that being soul-driven entrepreneurs on a mission in a country where taxes are some of the highest in the world and bureaucracy is relentless, it is an impossible task.”

They added: “When you read this we have probably been declared bankrupt by the Swedish tax authorities. All we ever wanted was to be a part of creating a more beautiful planet.”

Local authorities described their actions as “environmental crime”. Daniel Helsing, head of building and environment for the local county, Hylte, told Dagens Nyheter: “Voilà. Over 150 barrels of human shit.”

Hansen denied any problems with handling animals when approached by the newspaper. He described Swedish tax authorities as a “narcissistic entity” and said he believed he owed them “over 7m” SEK. He also claimed he was now “sentenced to a life in poverty”.

The Guardian contacted the Danish and Swedish tax authorities. The Danish tax agency said: “We have no comments here subject to confidentiality.” The Swedish tax agency did not comment on the case.

The Guardian has contacted Hansen and Helbæk for comment.

A prominent American academic has been detained in Thailand after being charged with insulting the monarchy, a rare case in which a foreign national has fallen foul of the country’s strict lese-majesty law.

Paul Chambers, who specialises in civil-military relations and democratisation in south-east Asia, was denied bail on Tuesday and is being held at Phitsanulok provincial prison in northern Thailand, his lawyers said.

He has been charged under section 112 of the Thai criminal code, which contains the country’s lese-majesty law, and section 14 of the Computer Crimes Act.

The charges relate to a webinar invitation titled “Thailand’s 2024 Military and Police Reshuffles: What Do They Mean?”. It was published in October 2024, on the website of the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, a research centre based in Singapore.

“[Chambers] denied all charges. He neither wrote nor published the blurb on the website,” said Akarachai Chaimaneekarakate, of Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, which represents Chambers. Chambers plans to appeal against the court’s decision to deny bail, Akarachai added.

Thailand has one of the world’s most strict lese-majesty laws, under which criticism of the royal family can lead to 15 years in jail on a single charge.

If a person faces multiple cases, they can be sentenced to decades in prison: in January 2024 a man was sentenced to 50 years over his comments about the royal family.

At least 277 people have been charged under the law since authorities cracked down on youth-led mass protests that began in July 2020. People have been prosecuted for political speeches, wearing clothes deemed to be impersonating the royals, or for being involved in the sale of satirical cartoons.

It is rare for a foreign national to be charged under the lese-majesty law, however.

Chambers, who is a well-known academic, is a lecturer at Naresuan University in northern Thailand, and a visiting fellow at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute.

According to a summary shared by Chambers’ lawyers, an official from the police inquiry said the information on the blurb was false, “as the king did not exercise powers to restructure the military or appoint high-ranking national security officials. To say otherwise would be an insult to the king and would tarnish the king’s reputation and dignity”.

Sunai Phasuk, a senior researcher on Thailand in Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, said lese-majesty prosecutions were “a serious blot” on Thailand’s human rights record.

“The abusive use of the royal insult law in Thailand has reached a new height of absurdity when Paul Chambers, a prominent Thai studies scholar, is charged with lese-majesty and cybercrime offences for commenting about the monarchy and the military. Academic freedom and free speech in Thailand will suffer devastating blows if this baseless prosecution proceeds,” Sunai said.

A prominent American academic has been detained in Thailand after being charged with insulting the monarchy, a rare case in which a foreign national has fallen foul of the country’s strict lese-majesty law.

Paul Chambers, who specialises in civil-military relations and democratisation in south-east Asia, was denied bail on Tuesday and is being held at Phitsanulok provincial prison in northern Thailand, his lawyers said.

He has been charged under section 112 of the Thai criminal code, which contains the country’s lese-majesty law, and section 14 of the Computer Crimes Act.

The charges relate to a webinar invitation titled “Thailand’s 2024 Military and Police Reshuffles: What Do They Mean?”. It was published in October 2024, on the website of the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, a research centre based in Singapore.

“[Chambers] denied all charges. He neither wrote nor published the blurb on the website,” said Akarachai Chaimaneekarakate, of Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, which represents Chambers. Chambers plans to appeal against the court’s decision to deny bail, Akarachai added.

Thailand has one of the world’s most strict lese-majesty laws, under which criticism of the royal family can lead to 15 years in jail on a single charge.

If a person faces multiple cases, they can be sentenced to decades in prison: in January 2024 a man was sentenced to 50 years over his comments about the royal family.

At least 277 people have been charged under the law since authorities cracked down on youth-led mass protests that began in July 2020. People have been prosecuted for political speeches, wearing clothes deemed to be impersonating the royals, or for being involved in the sale of satirical cartoons.

It is rare for a foreign national to be charged under the lese-majesty law, however.

Chambers, who is a well-known academic, is a lecturer at Naresuan University in northern Thailand, and a visiting fellow at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute.

According to a summary shared by Chambers’ lawyers, an official from the police inquiry said the information on the blurb was false, “as the king did not exercise powers to restructure the military or appoint high-ranking national security officials. To say otherwise would be an insult to the king and would tarnish the king’s reputation and dignity”.

Sunai Phasuk, a senior researcher on Thailand in Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, said lese-majesty prosecutions were “a serious blot” on Thailand’s human rights record.

“The abusive use of the royal insult law in Thailand has reached a new height of absurdity when Paul Chambers, a prominent Thai studies scholar, is charged with lese-majesty and cybercrime offences for commenting about the monarchy and the military. Academic freedom and free speech in Thailand will suffer devastating blows if this baseless prosecution proceeds,” Sunai said.

A Texas man who buried his eight-year-old daughter on Sunday after the unvaccinated child died with measles says Robert F Kennedy Jr “never said anything” about the vaccine against the illness or its proven efficacy while visiting the girl’s family and community for her funeral.

“He did not say that the vaccine was effective,” Pete Hildebrand, the father of Daisy Hildebrand, said in reference to Kennedy during a brief interview on Monday. “I had supper with the guy … and he never said anything about that.”

Hildebrand’s remarks came in response to a question about the national health secretary’s publicized visit to Daisy’s funeral. It was also after Kennedy issued a statement in which he accurately said: “The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine,” which also provides protection against mumps and rubella.

Kennedy, an avowed vaccine skeptic helming the Trump administration’s response to a measles outbreak that has been steadily growing across the US, then undermined that conventional messaging by soon publishing another statement that lavished praise on a pair of unconventional practitioners who have eschewed the two-dose MMR shot in favor of vitamins and cod liver oil.

The comments from Hildebrand provided a glimpse into how Kennedy simply demurred on vaccines – rather than express a position on them – during his first visit to the center of an outbreak that as of Monday had claimed three lives.

When asked for comment on Monday, Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) did not dispute Hildebrand’s claims that the agency’s leader was silent on Sunday about vaccines.

It instead provided a link to Kennedy’s statement after the funeral, which read in part: “My intention was to come down here quietly to console the families and to be with [their] community in their moment of grief.”

Public health experts have repeatedly said the MMR vaccine is the best way to prevent deaths or serious illness from measles, a highly contagious respiratory disease.

Yet, during his brief interview on Monday, Hildebrand made clear that he stood by his skepticism of vaccines.

“I know it’s not effective because some family members ended up getting the vaccine, and they got the measles way worse than some of my kids,” said Hildebrand, who is raising two other children with his wife, Eva. “The vaccine was not effective.”

Medical professionals have long established that getting an illness one was vaccinated against does not mean the vaccination failed. Vaccines also work by reducing the severity of illness – and, in some cases, can prevent death – should people catch the sickness they were immunized against.

Daisy Hildebrand died last week at University medical center in Lubbock, Texas, about 80 miles (129km) away from her family’s home in the rural community of Seminole. Her doctors attributed her death to what they described as “measles pulmonary failure”, noting that she was not MMR-vaccinated and had no reported underlying conditions, according to a statement from Texas’s state health services department.

She was the second young child from Seminole to die from measles in about five weeks. Kayley Fehr, who was also not given the MMR vaccine, died aged six in February after contracting measles and being hospitalized in Lubbock.

An unvaccinated adult in Lea county, New Mexico, also died after contracting the measles.

Fehr was the first person in the US to die from measles since 2015. Measles had been declared eliminated from the US in 2000, but it has recently been spreading in undervaccinated communities.

Funeral services for Hildebrand and Fehr were held in the same Mennonite church in Seminole, which has a population of about 7,000, according to publicly available information. Many Mennonite communities – which tend to be close-knit – have historically been undervaccinated as they prioritize what they interpret to be medical freedom over vaccine mandates.

Children who get the MMR vaccine are typically given the first dose at 12-15 months. They usually get the second dose between ages four and six.

Respectively, the shots are 93% and 97% effective, says the US Centers for Diseases Control.

The west Texas county to which Seminole belongs, Gaines, has one of the highest vaccine exemption rates in the state. Around the time of Hildebrand’s death, it had reported about 300 measles cases since January. That was more than 65% of the nearly 500 measles cases which had then been reported in Texas.

As of Friday, the US government was reporting more than 605 measles cases across 22 states for the year so far. At least 74 of those cases – roughly 12% – had led to hospitalizations.

Kansas, Ohio and Oklahoma joined Texas as well as New Mexico in having active measles outbreaks, defined as three or more cases, officials said.

The US reported 285 measles cases in all of 2024.

Experts have warned that the US’s collective outbreak could continue for several more months, if not for about a year. They have also said the US should prepare for more measles-related deaths without a more aggressive response.

The US Senate’s health committee has summoned Kennedy to testify before the group on Thursday. Despite Kennedy’s well-documented vaccine skepticism, the Senate voted 52-48 to confirm him as the national health secretary.

South Korea will hold a presidential election on 3 June, the country’s acting president said on Tuesday, after predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached and removed from office over a disastrous declaration of martial law.

The government “is to set June 3 as the date for South Korea’s 21st presidential election”, prime minister Han Duck-soo said, adding that the day would be designated as a temporary public holiday to facilitate voting.

Yoon was removed by the constitutional court for violating his official duty by issuing the martial law decree on 3 December and mobilising troops in an attempt to halt parliamentary proceedings.

The law requires a new presidential election within 60 days if the position becomes vacant.

South Korea has faced months of political turmoil since Yoon stunned the country by declaring martial law, triggering his impeachment by parliament and the impeachment of prime minister Han Duck-soo, who is also acting president.

Han’s impeachment was later overturned by the constitutional court and he will continue in the role of acting president until the election.

The power vacuum at the top of South Korea’s government has overshadowed Seoul’s efforts to deal with the administration of US President Donald Trump at a time of spiralling US tariffs and slowing growth in Asia’s fourth-largest economy.

Lee Jae-myung, the populist leader of the opposition liberal Democratic party who had lost to Yoon by a razor-thin margin in 2022, is a clear front-runner but faces legal challenges of his own under multiple trials for charges including violating the election law and bribery.

Yoon’s conservative People Power party has a wide-open field of candidates, led by labour minister Kim Moon-soo, who announced his intention to run on Tuesday.

According to a Gallup poll published on 4 April, 34% of respondents supported Lee as the next leader, 9% backed conservative Kim Moon-soo, 5% former ruling party leader Han Dong-hoon, 4% Daegu mayor Hong Joon-pyo, and 2% Seoul mayor Oh Se-hoon.

With Reuters and Agence France-Presse

Meta is expanding its safety measures for teenagers on Instagram with a block on livestreaming, as the social media company extends its under-18 safeguards to the Facebook and Messenger platforms.

Under-16s will be barred from using Instagram’s Live feature unless they have parental permission. They will also require parental permission to turn off a feature that blurs images containing suspected nudity in their direct messages.

The changes were announced alongside the extension of Instagram’s teen accounts system to Facebook and Messenger. Teen accounts were introduced last year and placed under-18s by default into a setting that includes giving parents the ability to set daily time limits for using the app, to block teenagers from using Instagram at certain times and to see the accounts with which their child is exchanging messages.

Facebook and Messenger teen accounts will be rolled out initially in the US, UK, Australia and Canada. As with the Instagram accounts, users under the age of 16 will need parental permission to change the settings, while 16 and 17-year-olds defaulted into the new features will be able to change them independently.

Meta said the Instagram teen accounts were used by 54 million under-18s around the world, with more than 90% of 13- to 15-year-olds keeping on their default restrictions.

The NSPCC, a leading child protection charity, said it welcomed extending the measures to Facebook and Messenger, but said Meta had to do more work to prevent harmful material appearing on its platforms.

“For these changes to be truly effective, they must be combined with proactive measures so dangerous content doesn’t proliferate on Instagram, Facebook and Messenger in the first place,” said Matthew Sowemimo, the associate head of policy for child safety online at the NSPCC.

The announcement was made as the UK implements the Online Safety Act. Since March, every site and app within the scope of the legislation, which covers more than 100,000 services from Facebook, Google and X to Reddit and OnlyFans, is required to take steps to stop the appearance of illegal content such as child sexual abuse, fraud and terrorism material, or to take it down if it goes online.

The act also contains provisions for protecting children from harm and requires tech platforms to shield under-18s from damaging material such as suicide and self-harm-related content. Reports last week that the act could be watered down as part of a UK-US trade deal were met with protests from child safety groups, which said any compromise would be an “appalling sellout” that would be rejected by voters.

Speaking at the time the Instagram restrictions were launched, Meta’s then president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, said the aim was to “shift the balance in favour of parents” when it came to using parental controls. The announcement had come days after Clegg said parents tended not to use child safety measures.

At least 18 people have died and more than 120 injured after a roof collapsed at a nightclub in the capital of the Dominican Republic early on Tuesday, authorities said.

Crews were searching for potential survivors in the rubble at Jet Set in Santo Domingo, said Juan Manuel Méndez, director of the Center of Emergency Operations.

“We presume that many of them are still alive, and that is why the authorities here will not give up until not a single person remains under that rubble,” he said.

Nelsy Cruz, the governor of Montecristi, was among the victims. The injured included the merengue singer Rubby Pérez, who was performing when the roof collapsed, officials said.

His manager, Enrique Paulino, whose shirt was spattered with blood, told reporters at the scene that the concert began shortly before midnight, with the roof collapsing almost an hour later, killing the group’s saxophonist.

“It happened so quickly. I managed to throw myself into a corner,” he said, adding that he initially thought it was an earthquake.

President Luis Abinader wrote on X that all rescue agencies were “working tirelessly” to help those affected.

“We deeply regret the tragedy that occurred at the Jet Set nightclub. We have been following the incident minute by minute since it occurred,” he said.

Abinader arrived at the scene and hugged people looking for friends and family, some of them crying. He did not speak to reporters.

An official with a megaphone stood outside the club asking the large crowd that had gathered to search for friends and relatives to make room for ambulances.

“You have to cooperate with authorities, please,” he said. “We are removing people.”

At one hospital where the injured were taken, an official stood outside reading aloud the names of survivors as a crowd gathered around her and shouted out the names of their loved ones.

It was not immediately clear what caused the roof to collapse.

Forget expensive beans and pricey filters – if you want a stronger cup of pour-over coffee, just add water slowly, steadily and from a height, researchers say.

While there are myriad ways to make coffee – from moka pots to cafetieres and barista-style machines – pour-over coffee is an everyday staple for many. Now scientists say they have discovered how to make a stronger cup using the same quantity of ground coffee.

Dr Arnold Mathijssen, a co-author of the study from the University of Pennsylvania, said pouring the hot water slowly from a goose-neck kettle increases the contact time between the water and the coffee grounds, while pouring from a greater height increases mixing, both of which result in more coffee being extracted.

But he added: “If you pour too slowly, or if you go too high, then the jet tends to break up into these smaller droplets, and that’s what you want to avoid as well.”

Writing in the journal Physics of Fluids, Mathijssen and colleagues report how they carried out a number of experiments involving transparent silica gel particles – representing ground coffee – that were illuminated with a laser sheet, which were recorded with a high-speed camera.

While slow pouring increases contact time, the team found that at low heights the velocity of the water was too low to dig into and disturb the bed of particles. Water poured from greater heights resulted in greater agitation of the particles, but the team found that water must flow in an unbroken jet to dig into the bed of particles and displace those at the bottom of the funnel – a process that results in particles building up on the sides and then falling in, creating an avalanche-like effect that increases mixing.

“The increased height compensates for the slow pouring. You only get the avalanche if there is enough energy available,” Mathijssen said.

When the team applied their findings to coffee itself, they found pouring from a greater height resulted in stronger brews, provided an unbroken flow of water was used.

The team add that a good starting point for those at home is to reduce the amount of ground coffee by 10%, say from 20 to 18 grams per cup, then taste the coffee produced by pouring the hot water at different heights – keeping to a limit of about 30cm for safety.

Researchers have previously revealed that to make the perfect espresso every time, it is best to use coffee that is ground slightly coarser than normal.

Both that study and the new research found that the proposed adjustments meant less coffee was needed to produce a drink of given strength. Experts say this is important given that climate breakdown is already causing problems for cultivation of the Coffea arabica plant.

Prof Jamie Foster, of Portsmouth University, who was not involved with the new research but carried out the study on espresso-making, said it seemed “totally plausible” that the proposed method would lead to a stronger cup of pour-over coffee and a more optimal use of the coffee grounds, and he saw no reason why similar logic could not be applied to cafetiere-style brewing.

“Of course, there is a cheat open to those who prefer cafetiere coffee,” he said. “That is, put in a spoon and give the grounds a stir, but perhaps a cleverly chosen pour could save dirtying cutlery.”